Two more Unicorns in 2020;Indian Cricketers as Investors;DigiBoxx as an alternative to Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive; Hey Siri, Start my car! ......continue
Week 52
Hi , Shubham Shekhar here,
Welcome all to the weekly compilation of wonderful tech and related news.
Also Including the best tweet/thread/infographic of the week. Do read and engage.
Here is Your weekly dose,
#1
Dailyhunt parent VerSe Innovation and Glance, the new Unicorns.
Dailyhunt parent VerSe Innovation, India’s “first tech unicorn focused on local languages” following a $100 million infusion from Google, Microsoft and Falcon Edge Capital. Existing investors Sofina Group and Lupa Systems also put in money.
The funding will be used to scale up their short video app Josh and enhance its content creator ecosystem. Josh claims to clock over 77 million monthly active users and more than 1.5 billion video plays daily.
Glance, InMobi’s lock screen platform, has raised $145 million from Google and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital.
The 18-month-old Glance is the one of the fastest startups to enter the unicorn club.
India’s Glance tops 100M daily active users in 21 months.
These new entries will make the total count to 11 who surpassed an unicorn valuation in the year 2020.
#2
Indian Cricketers as Startup Investors In 2020
From healthtech to ‘dukaantech’ to edtech, these are the likes of the Indian Cricketers in 2020.
Ajinkya Rahane - invested an undisclosed amount in Pune-based agritech startup MeraKisan
Gautam Gambhir - invested an undisclosed amount in an healthtech startup FYI Health
Harsha Bhogle - invested in a fantasy sports platform called Fantasy Akhada,also invested in a Gurugram-based finance marketplace Chqbook
Kapil Dev - invested an undisclosed amount in a deeptech startup called Harmonizer India, he is also an investor in startups such as online supermarket PeopleEasy, fintech company Samco Ventures, EV startup VAOO and legal tech startup WizCounsel
Mahendra Singh Dhoni - invested an undisclosed amount in Bengaluru-based business ledger app Khatabook, Dhoni invested an undisclosed amount in Gurugram-based auto marketplace Cars24
RP Singh - invested an undisclosed amount in a sports technology startup known as SportsUno
Shikhar Dhawan - invested in yoga-focussed health and wellness startup Sarva
Sourav Ganguly - invested an undisclosed amount in an edtech startup ClassPlus, also had invested an undisclosed amount in the Mumbai-based, curated video platform Flickstree.
Virat Kohli - invested INR 2 Cr in a Bengaluru-based insurance tech startup called Digit Insurance.Kohli has also invested INR 19.3 Cr in Sachin Tendulkar backed fashion startup Universal Sportsbiz Pvt Ltd (USPL). Previously, the captain has invested in the London-based social media startup Sport Convo.
Yuvraj Singh - invested an undisclosed amount in a nutrition-based healthcare startup called Wellversed. The cricketer had launched YouWeCan Ventures in 2015 and also invested in several other startups like Healthians, EazyDiner, Cartisan, Buddy, JetSetGo and salon chain Naturals.
#3
NITI Aayog launches Digiboxx ,India’s very own online cloud storage service.
Google announced that it won't be offering unlimited free photo uploads starting June 1, 2021.
A potential alternative to Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive, the feature has been named InstaShare and allows users to share up to 2GB of content for free.
DigiBoxx offers a plan for as low as Rs 30 per month. It will give a facility of 5TB storage space with a size limit of 10GB. For free users, you can get 20GB of storage space by simply creating an account on DigiBoxx.
For business, DigiBoxx is offering 50TB storage at Rs 999. Up to 500 users can have access to the files under this plan.
“We have created an innovative model through which we are working with multiple Indian Data Centres to achieve these price points. It’s an intelligent mesh created using domestic cloud solutions,” said Arnab Mitra, CEO of DigiBoxx.
“The platform is the first of its kind ‘Make in India, Store in India’ digital asset management SaaS product that is in line with the country’s national security and data localisation priorities,” the DigiBoxx said in a statement.
#4
Apple's autonomous driving car : Hey Siri , Where’s my car?
Apple is targeting the production of a new electric vehicle by 2024.
In 2014, Apple began working on "Project Titan," with upwards of 1,000 employees working on developing an electric vehicle at a secret location near its Cupertino headquarters.
This "next level" design is like "the first time you saw iPhone," one of Reuters sources said.
"We're focusing on autonomous systems. It's a core technology that we view as very important. We sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects. It's probably one of the most difficult AI projects actually to work on." -- Apple CEO Tim Cook on Apple's plans in the car space.
#5
Tiktok India Rival Mitron inked a licensing deal Zee Music Company
“We are delighted that Mitron users will now have access to the huge catalogue of Zee Music library including blockbusters from Bollywood," Shivank Agarwal, co-founder and chief executive officer at Mitron TV, said. "We aim to provide a seamless experience to our millions of content creators to showcase their talent and make the most interesting content."
Mitron is rapidly ramping up its music library along with focusing on original in-app music. The app has crossed over 40+ million downloads on Google Play Store.
The report said that the Mitron app’s entire source code was bought from Qboxus along with its features and the user interface for just $34 (~Rs 2,600). The app was even removed by Google from the Play Store over a violation of Google’s spam and minimum functionality’ policy.
#6
FirstSource acquires PatientMatters and Sachin Bansal’s Navi Looks To Acquire Aviva, Dabur Life Insurance
PatientMatters is a Florida-based healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions provider.turnover of $17.7 million for the year-ending December 31, 2019.
Sachin Bansal-led financial service company Navi Technologies is reportedly looking to acquire Aviva Life Insurance Company, a joint venture between UK-based insurer Aviva and Indian consumer goods company’s investment arm Dabur Invest Corp.
In the FY2020, Navi Technologies reported a total consolidated income of INR 221.89 Cr with an expense of INR 219.96 Cr, leading to a profit before tax of INR 2.9 Cr.
Bansal is planning to acquire the Dabur family’s 51% stake in the joint venture for INR 1000-1200 cr .
Thread of the week-
Infographic of the week-
That’s all for this week. Will now be hitting your inbox next week.